Pardon the Ravens

by Alan Hruska

  “Oh, come on, Alec,” she says, strutting past him. “Don’t be slow!”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  My name’s George,” says the little blond boy in short pants who has just been deposited in Sarah’s room.

  Sarah, in overalls, is sitting on her four-poster bed, dressing her favorite doll. “I know your name,” she says impatiently, hunting for the doll’s underwear in a stack of doll clothing. “I just heard it. Didn’t you hear Nanny just saying it?”

  “I’m almost five. How old are you?”

  “Four-and-a-half.”

  “I’m older than you.”

  “So?” says Sarah.

  “I live in the next house,” George says.

  “I know that too. I’ve seen you.”

  George, who is a bit shorter than Sarah, strides to the center of the room and looks around it. “You sure have a lot of toys in here.”

  Sarah, too, glances at her possessions, but without much pride or enthusiasm. The room is large, pink, and bright, and might have been furnished by F.A.O. Schwarz.

  “All girl’s stuff,” George notes deprecatingly.

  “Well, ye-ah,” Sarah rejoins.

  “You have a dog?”

  “Vito does. I can play with him whenever I want to.”

  “Who’s Vito?”

  “He works for daddy.”

  George opens the lid of a bin of toys and starts rummaging.

  “You have a doctor’s bag?”

  “No,” Sarah says, as if it were stupid to have such a thing, but staring at the boy now with curiosity.

  “I do.”

  “Why would I want that?”

  “To play doctor, of course.”

  “Why would I want to play that?”

  “It’s fun. And, actually, you can do it without a bag.”

  “So how do you play?”

  “I’ll be the doctor, and you take all your clothes off.”

  “That’s nasty.”

  “No, it’s fun.”

  “Okay. I’ll be the doctor, and you take all your clothes off.”

  George looks confused. “That’s not the way you play.”

  Sarah slides down from her bed, holding the now fully dressed doll. “I don’t like you. I’m going to tell Nanny to take you away.”

  “I shouldn’t come here anyway, my mom says.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because my babysitter’s friends with your babysitter.”

  “She’s not a babysitter. She’s a nanny.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Boy,” Sarah says. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  “My house is bigger than yours.”

  “You’re a big jerk,” Sarah says.

  “Well, your father’s a gangster boss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A very bad man.”

  “Who says?”

  “My mom says. And my dad.”

  “Well, whatta they know? They’re wrong,” Sarah says, feet planted, arms akimbo.

  “No they’re not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Your father kills people,” George says, his small eyes lit with excitement.

  “He does not!” Sarah exclaims.

  “He does too. And your mom doesn’t even live here.”

  “Who says?” Sarah, clutching the doll, screams, tears welling in her eyes.

  Phil bursts in. “What’s going on here? Who is this kid?” Back to the doorway, he bellows, “Nanny!”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sam, arriving at Abigail’s office in Syosset, takes off his coat and hangs it next to hers on the coat rack. Abigail, at her desk, watches each movement.

  “Thanks for coming in on a Saturday, Sam.”

  “I don’t mind,” he says, thinking she’s sounding a bit strange.

  He goes to the new steel desk she put in, catty-cornered to hers—all the while her eyes still on him. On his desk is a container of coffee from the diner next door. He opens it, takes a sip. Just the way he likes it, one sugar, very little milk. “Thanks,” he says.

  “We’ve got some catching up, paper-wise,” she says.

  “So you mentioned.”

  “I’m kind of interested… yesterday, you said—”

  “I walked in on them,” he says.

  “Right, yeah, that,” she says.

  “You didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

  She sighs, gets up, and leads him outside to the parking lot, which has a cluster of cars in front of the diner.

  “You’re thinking what?” he says. “They’ve wired the phones and the office?”

  “I’m not sure is the point.”

  “You’re the security expert.”

  “Yeah, but there are lots of ways to bug somebody.”

  “This is pretty crazy, Abigail.”

  “Who was there?” she asks, ignoring the admonition.

  “Anwar and four other guys.”

  “Where in the house?”

  “The bar in the basement.”

  “Yeah, that’s where they’d meet,” she says. “Describe the guys.”

  “Why’re you so interested in this?”

  “Who were the guys?”

  “The one sitting was huge. Three hundred pounds, maybe three-fifty. Probably glandular. Ugly son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Little John.”

  “Little John Cuitano?” he says, sitting hard on the fender of his own car.

  “Sounds like him, yeah. What were they talking about?”

  “You know him, Little John?”

  “We work for him.”

  “Oh, Christ,” says Sam. “Him too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s in New Jersey, I thought.”

  “And what?” she says. “We can’t drive to New Jersey?”

  “You’re really plugged in.”

  “It’s a lot of business, Sam. And I thought we’d been over this.”

  “It’s freezing out here.”

  “I know. What were they talking about?”

  “I didn’t hear.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “Okay,” she says. “You wanna go back in?”

  “We’re not finished,” he says. “Cuitano and Anwar are both bosses.”

  “So?”

  “Different families that don’t always get along.”

  “And?”

  “They fight, you’re in the middle.”

  “I never take sides. No need to.”

  “Oh right,” he says, as if indulging a child. “And they’re always gonna see it that way?”

  “We’re nothing to these people, we’re menials. We provide a service.”

  “So whatta you gonna do when one of those bastards asks for a service against the other? Like a little ole bug in the ceiling lamp? You give him what he wants, you’re a player, and you’re at risk. You refuse, they’ve got you down as unreliable, maybe even playing for the other side. So either way, you start measuring your life expectancy in what? Weeks, maybe. Days, probably.”

  She swallows hard. “It hasn’t happened.”

  “Good. Get out before it does.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You already know too much?”

  “That’s right.”

  There’s an awkward moment in which Sam ingests what he’s been told and Abigail considers whether to tell him more.

  She says, “Because there is something else we do. Have done. I have. The company.”

  “I’m really not going to like this, am I?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he says dismally. “What is it?”

  “Close to what you said. Tap phones.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “The last one of those I did, for Phil… the guy was a lawyer.”

  “And?”

  “He’s missing.”

  “How long?”

  “Too long.”

  “You mean, h
e’s probably dead.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Great,” he says. “That’s the too much you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “For which you also feel guilty.”

  “Very,” she says.

  “You didn’t kill him.”

  “Not directly.”

  Sam rubs his face.

  “Abigail, sell the business and move elsewhere.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “I gotta live, Sam.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to make sure of.”

  She thinks about that for a while, then says, “Let’s get a drink. I’ve got a bottle of Jack Daniel’s at home.”

  “In the middle of the afternoon?”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t drink,” he says.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Then what are we talking about?”

  “I gotta draw you a picture?”

  THIRTY

  At a hospital in Queens, Alec and Carrie meet with a small round person with exquisitely formed purple lips, a Dr. Patel, who is actually there on a Saturday and will be her treating psychiatrist. In a tiny impersonal office, he explains the routine. Carrie will undergo detoxification for five days. Then, they will attempt to treat her. Then, they will see. He discreetly leaves them alone for a few moments after closing the door, whereupon Carrie grabs Alec and gives him a kiss. Their first. One unlike any other. So that he will never forget it.

  Late Saturday afternoon. Alec, in running shorts, shambles down the embankment from the reservoir track. He is trying to imagine the sensation of detox. He has this picture of Carrie curled in agony on a bed. He has this picture of himself as he is at this moment, which makes him stop walking—tethered to a spot, like a goat, by the remembrance of a kiss that is all the more admonitory for the dark and sweet taste of it still on his lips. He replays in his mind their last scene in Patel’s office, watching her go, her last look, wistful and self-mocking, flung over her shoulder. And that lovely kiss still curls in his brain, churning it to the consistency of jelly.

  The scene is all too reminiscent. They didn’t allow children to visit in hospitals, but Alec, age eight, somehow got in, found the room, saw his mother looking like someone else. Looking at him as if she didn’t know him.

  He stirs himself finally and makes his way toward the avenue. Joggers, strollers, bikers, skaters flow insouciantly the opposite way. It’s like he’s burst from a bubble of fantasy time, the kind cocooned by children at play. What am I doing? he thinks. I don’t recognize this person.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Abigail and Sam lie naked in bed. It’s her bed, and it’s king-size. Sun spears through the blinds, slats both of them. He’s lanky, with long slender legs and a little pot belly that stretches flat when he lies on his back. She has small ankles and thin legs, with a butt that pillows out surprisingly on her light frame, and dainty breasts.

  “I used to have a beautiful body,” she says.

  He boosts up on an elbow. “Whatta you mean, used to?”

  “Ha.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “How long you been celibate?”

  “That obvious?”

  “I’ve seen hungry,” she says.

  “And I’m what, in your view? Ravenous?”

  “Alters your judgment.”

  He falls back to the pillow.

  “But a good start,” she says. “For us. Considering.”

  “Considering my celibacy,” he says.

  “Considering the fact that it was our first time. First times are difficult.”

  “You know this?”

  “Not from recent history, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  Sam’s eyes dart around. It’s a spacious room filled with maple, florals, and chintz. Many purchases, many objects, all denoting a companionable couple.

  “His name was Gus, your husband?”

  “He was called Gus.”

  “Augustus?”

  “Giuseppe.”

  “Ah,” he says, now sitting up.

  Silence.

  “What?” she says.

  “Just looking around. You really loved him.”

  “You’re creeped out by his things being here still.”

  “No, only natural,” he says.

  “Even stuff in the bathroom? His razor? Shaving cream?”

  “I understand.”

  “I can’t touch a goddamn thing.”

  “We made love in this bed,” he says.

  “Big step for me.”

  “Which part?”

  “Both. You. And the bed.”

  Silence.

  “I put away the photos,” she says. “Somehow I could do that.”

  “You put them downstairs.”

  “Well, I got them out of the bedroom.”

  “Should we talk about something else?” he says.

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Should we talk about the business?”

  “No.” She climbs out of bed, heads toward the bathroom. “Take a good look. We can talk about that.”

  “Your backside.”

  “My ass. Pretty big.”

  “Hell no, it’s not.”

  She turns. “Big ass, small tits.”

  He rolls from the bed, stands before her. “Beautiful. Every bit of you. Truly beautiful.”

  “You just wanna get laid again.”

  “That too.”

  “Could happen,” she says, going into the bathroom and closing the door.

  He drifts back to bed, lies on his back, looking around some more. The house is on a good-sized lot at the end of a street bordering what’s called the Syosset Woods, some uncleared land, too swampy to build on and filling the windows with branches. Presently she emerges with a plastic pail full of men’s toiletries.

  “These I’ll get rid of,” she says, going to the foot of the bed. “Not the business. I come with the business. Because I leave, that’s worse. Believe me, not even possible. Gus and I knew that going in. A deal with the devil, maybe, but we made it. So the question for you, Sam—you in or out?”

  “Why not possible?”

  “Just isn’t, Sam. Think about it.”

  “What about me?”

  “You could still leave. No problem. It’s been done.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he says.

  “There’s lots I’m not telling you.”

  “And will you?”

  “When you need to know it, yes.”

  “You get to decide.”

  “How else could it be?”

  “You could trust me now.”

  “It’s not a matter of trust,” she says.

  He can’t see why not, but says to himself, Let it go, because ultimately it will make no difference to how you feel.

  “So in or out, Sam?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I like to hear it said.”

  He slides to the foot of the bed and hoists himself again to a sitting position. “Okay,” he says, looking up at her. “I’m in for as long as you want me.”

  “Yes?” She tears up.

  “Put the toiletries back. I may need them.”

  “Okay,” she says with a wet smile.

  “And we have to take measures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you get targeted—when it happens, we have to know it’s happening.”

  She studies his face, gets nothing.

  He says, “You know how to tap phones.”

  With widening eyes, she says, “What… are you thinking, Sam?”

  “You’re gonna have to teach me,” he says.

  “To wiretap, why?”

  “I just said.”

  “You wanna tap Phil Anwar’s phone?” she says, as if questioning Sam’s sanity.

  “You agreed you’re at risk. And what you’re not tel
ling me probably increases it.”

  “And this is what?” she says. “A smaller risk?”

  “If it’s done right, sure. He travels, doesn’t he? Away from home a lot.”

  “He’ll know.”

  “He might find the tap, but he’d probably think it’s the FBI. And if he rips it out, we’ll know that. Because we’ll be listening.”

  “Know, and do what?”

  “Depends,” he says.

  “This is worse than crazy, Sam. It’s suicidal.”

  “I don’t agree, Abby. You tapped a guy’s phone, and he died. Makes you a witness to a probable murder. Guy who did it might decide any minute, you’re too big a risk. Which means he wants your name off the witness list—permanently.”

  She takes his head in both hands. “What you’re thinking of doing… would be putting a bigger risk on yourself than on me.”

  “Trust me,” he says. “I do know what I’m doing. The worst risk is to be in the dark.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  She’s in rehab,” says Alec to Mac, who has perched himself on the credenza against the long wall of Alec’s office.

  “All right,” Mac says. “We’ll have her sign the affidavit when she gets out.”

  “Fine,” Alec says in a tone suggesting the opposite.

  “You have a problem with that?” Mac asks.

  “How’ll we use it, the affidavit?”

  “The point of getting it, dummy, is so we never have to use it. You get witnesses committed on paper? It’s amazing how reliable they become.”

  “I think we can trust her,” says Alec.

  “Oh, really? You’re a trusting sort of person?”

  “Forget it, fine. We’ll get the affidavit.”

  Mac’s glance isn’t trusting, but he lets it go. “I’m afraid we have to fill in Shilling.”

  “Oh, well, shit!”

  “For Christ’s sake, Alec! The man’s negotiating with the warehouse receipt holders.”

  “Well, you see, that’s what I don’t like,” says Alec. “We go public with this, and we make her a mark. We put her at risk.”

  “Are you conflicted?” Mac asks with chilling sweetness.

  “In the sense that I think the personal safety of a witness is more important than our personal gain? I wouldn’t call that a conflict.”

  Mac, glaring for a moment, decides to cut Alec some slack. “Marius Shilling—kraut bastard though he may be—is co-representing our clients. Do you have any doubt that we have to at least inform him of this witness?”